Trial by Fire
by Rahvin Dashiva
Summary: The Tau Empire is often seen as benevolent in 40k, but is it really? Shas'la Fi'rios is a fugitive, on the run from the Ethereals and sought by everyone. Within her lies a breakthrough that could change the future of the Tau species forever.
1. Chapter 1

Trial by Fire

Part 1

Shas'la Fi'rios pressed her back against the chipped stonework of the central column, flicking her helmet's aural sensors up to maximum. The slight scrape of loose debris kicked up by her hunters echoed faintly through the urban zone, and she checked her pulse carbine's readout for what felt like the hundredth time.

Still at sixty-three percent. She had two more ammunition packs on her belt, spare, but hopefully she wouldn't have to use them. She knew for a fact that two of her pursuers were down; she had stayed long enough to watch them fall, and it had nearly gotten her killed. Despite her efforts, they still followed her.

Two down. That left at least four, and at most twenty-two. Plus support.

A click on her helmet activated its night-vision, bathing the darkness in a ghostly green light. They would be here soon. She clicked the safety off on her carbine, and her helmet superimposed its targeting information onto her vision, drawn from the module mounted atop it, halfway down its length. Ammo count to the top right, aiming reticule currently down low to the left, heat monitor around it.

She could hear faint calls now, echoing through the building. It was a habitation building; evacuated now; cold and empty. Like a tomb waiting for its occupant. She shook her head. No time to get distracted by fatalistic thoughts now.

There! Two shadowy shapes moved slowly forward towards the ground floor entrance, their forms barely visible through the murky window beside it.

She dropped into a tense crouch, carbine raised to her shoulder. Its aiming reticule dropped neatly over the rearmost of the two shapes, and a low beep sounded in her ear. She waited until the leader was through the door before squeezing the trigger.

A high-pitched _crack_ shattered the silence, and a tongue of blue energy discharge spat from her carbine behind the hypersonic pulse.

She was moving before he hit the ground, scrambling from the column towards the stairs behind her. A shout rose from the surviving hunter, and she winced as fire from heavier pulse rifles began slicing through the building. She hit the stairs just ahead of a trio of shots that tore the soft carpet to shreds, and was up them before her hunters could adjust their aims.

_Where to go?_ The first floor was bare and empty; used as a large storage area. Whatever had been stored there had been taken with the evacuation. She supposed she should be flattered that the Aun deemed her enough of a threat to cause such upheaval, but she would have preferred the zone to be inhabited still. Cold, but civilians would give her the distraction she was going to need to get anywhere. Cold, but then, did she really care about that any more?

She got down, lying prone on the floor facing the stairs. If they wanted her now, they'd have to come up those stairs to get her, and they knew it as well as she. She might not be getting out of there alive, but she was damn well going to take as many of them with her as she could.

It was then that the floor behind her exploded upwards in a hail of shots.

She felt the world lurch as the weakened floor began to fall. There was no way she could reach the wall where it was stable; the entire western half of the floor was caving in. She rolled onto her back. _One chance_, she thought. _One chance and then I'm dead_.

The centre of the floor hit the ground with a bone-jarring _crunch-thump_, and she pushed herself up with the impact, twisting in the air. She landed heavily in a clumsy crouch, but her carbine was up and firing as fast as she could pull the trigger. Pulses stabbed out into the dozen-or-so of her hunters that had followed her inside, and she saw four go down before they oriented themselves and returned fire.

She dove right, coming up on one knee and firing off a photon grenade from the carbine's underslung launcher. The grenade detonated in a blinding flash of high-intensity light and a keening _crack-whump_. She picked off two more in the confusion, firing from her crouch in short bursts.

A hurricane of blue-white pulses ripped through the outer wall to her left, tearing through the stone and gouging ragged craters in the wall behind. She swore, scrambling to her feet, and took cover behind a thin interior wall. It wasn't much, but it was something.

The outer wall finally gave in, and a sleek shape crashed through, searchlights stabbing through the swirling dust for her. The burst cannon mounted on the Devilfish's nose swivelled as its pilot found her, and then a low whine split the air as it fired once more.

She dropped the carbine and ran. Straight for the smashed-in window that opened onto the street to the east. Which meant going past the Devilfish.

Burst cannon fire smashed through the thin walls like it was paper, right behind her as she sprinted for her life. A hurricane of destroyed masonry and plaster roared in her ears, and she was glad that the Devilfish pilot didn't have direct line-of-sight. All he had was a vague heat signal, and the burst cannon would obscure that further.

She was so intent on the Devilfish and its cannon that she completely missed the small step in front of her. The breath went out of her all at once when she hit the ground, and she forced herself to stay down as the burst cannon's fire scythed above her. It stopped, then reversed direction, coming back for her, lower this time.

She pushed up from the floor and leapt. She barely cleared the storm of fire, then she was at the window. A rushed dive took her clear of the building and she hit the street in a hard roll. Pain lanced from her shoulder where she had landed on it, but she forced herself to keep moving. She could lose the tank in the backstreets. Maybe.

No sooner had she started sprinting again than a second Devilfish slipped smoothly round the buildings to her left. She made it to the narrow gap between two houses, and then she was once again being trailed by burst cannon fire, the walls exploding outwards in a snaking line, showering her with red-hot debris.

If she slowed, she'd be dead. She'd seen what vehicle-mounted burst cannons left of what they hit, and it was barely recognisable. She was glad she'd dropped the carbine; there was barely enough room between the maze of houses for her to fit, and the bulky carbine would only have slowed her down.

She emerged from the backstreets and onto a wide accessway in a roll, and it took her a second to realise that the burst cannon had stopped firing. Reloading? Or had she lost them? She croaked a laugh. She'd lost them. Now all she had to do was get out of this damned city.

The two Devilfishes banked round the houses onto the accessway, one to her left, one to her right. They slowed, knowing they had her trapped, and the hatch swung open on the one in front of her. She could see Fire Warriors moving up behind them, completing the circle around her.

From the open hatch emerged the top half of its commander. "Shas'la Fi'rios!" he shouted. "Surrender, for the Greater Good!"

She said nothing, inching her right hand down to her belt, and the small pulse pistol there. Any fast movements, and she was dead. She fought down a harsh laugh. She was dead anyway. All she was doing now was making them pay for it.

"We will not hesitate to use lethal force, Shas'la Fi'rios," the Devilfish commander said. "The Aun have ordered your capture, and sanctioned your termination if necessary. This is for the Greater Good."

The Greater Good. Was it really? She used to think it was the be-all, end-all of everything. It was what she had been raised to believe. Decisions all came down to the Greater Good. That Greater Good never seemed to be the same as what she could see needed to be done, though. It was always what the Aun decided.

"This is your last chance," announced the Devilfish commander. "Declare your surrender, or we _will_ kill you."

This was it. She opened her mouth at the same time as she drew the pulse pistol up and out. And the Devilfish exploded.

The Fire Warriors reacted as smoothly as she had once done, moving fluidly into the cover of the houses to either side of the accessway. The surviving Devilfish slipped sideways towards the buildings, its weapons moving wildly.

She took the opportunity to find cover, crouching in the shadow of a more-than-slightly damaged house. _What the hell?_

* * *

"Target One confirmed destroyed," reported the Shas'ui combat pilot of the Orca dropship. "Moving in low. Package identity confirmed. Life signals strong"

The deep drone of the Orca's engines changed slightly as he banked it down in a smooth curve towards the scattering ground troops. _Lackeys_, he thought, and clicked the comm on again. "Multiple enemy contacts. Looks like one Devilfish and fifteen to twenty Fire Warriors. Deploy units one to four."

There was a moment of static, and then the reply came back from the transport bay. "Drop confirmed. Units one through four ready in five."

"Confirmed." He levelled the Orca off, giving the gunners an easier shot. He watched with satisfaction as the railgun _thumped_ again, and the second Devilfish exploded violently as the hypervelocity slug punched through its engines.

"Drop ready," came the report from the transport bay.

"Acknowledged," he replied. "Deployment in six." He let a slight smile creep onto his features as he brought the Orca down lower and hit the switch to open the rear doors.

* * *

A deafening drone howled as the massive shape of an Orca dropship banked in low from the north. Four shapes dropped from the back of it as it screamed overhead, and the Fire Warriors began firing almost instantaneously. Pulse fire stabbed up at the falling shapes, but those shots that hit scored off them. They landed about thirty metres from her, and hit the ground with jetpacks running.

Crisis Battlesuits.

They opened fire with missile pods and plasma rifles, their unerringly-accurate fire felling the Fire Warriors like so many targets. Pulse fire traced black lines across their armour as they charged forwards, but did no serious damage. XV8's were combat tested against pulse fire. They were designed to stand up to it.

Three stopped, bracing their legs wide in a rough firing line, and one continued forwards, drawing what looked like a blade from the side of its jetpack. The dozen remaining Fire Warriors stood their ground, firing non-stop at the Battlesuits.

Eight were picked off by the three stationary suits, and the other four fell to the fourth. Its pilot had obviously trained for the situation, and he manoeuvred the Battlesuit with consummate skill, slicing his oversized blade around in tight arcs that split the infantrymen apart effortlessly.

It was over in seconds, though it felt like days to her, watching the Crisis suits take apart the Fire Warriors so completely. When the last Fire Warrior lay dead, the Battlesuits formed a rough semicircle in front of her as the Orca returned. The dropship came in slowly, anti-gravitic generators glowing hotly, until it hovered less than a metre from the ground in the centre of the accessway.

She saw a tall figure emerge from the back, and then the lead Crisis suit hit her. Her world shattered into blackness.

* * *

Shas'vre Vior'la Vral M'yen stepped from the back of the Orca. He winced as he saw Ui'Or'es strike, and walked over to the fallen Tau. He pushed through the XV8's, and knelt by her.

After so long… It didn't seem like it could really be her, but he couldn't mistake that face. His memories were blurred from back then; a side-effect of the treatment, but of the few fragments he had left, she was still there. He had thought – had been told – that she was dead. Missing in action, which was as good as dead on an enemy-held world.

And now she was here. Back on Fi'rios, her homeworld. She had been the last he expected to find as their objective. If the rumours were true about her, if she was the one…

He straightened. "She's down," he said, forcing his voice to be calm and cool. "Get her into the Orca's medical bay, and let's go. After this, it won't be long before they realise we aren't cleared. By then, I want us back on the _Ky'ralas_ before dawn."

Or'es nodded, his XV8's small head moving along with its pilot's movements. He stooped, stowing his blade, and picked her up.

M'yen turned and walked back to the Orca. She looked exactly the same as she had three years ago. And, by the reports, she was so different from everyone else that the Ethereals wanted her dead.

And if they wanted her dead, then the Enclaves wanted her alive.


	2. Chapter 2

Part 2 Part 2

Footsteps. She could hear footsteps, fading in and out of hearing. Boots on metal, clicking sharply.

A voice was saying something, but the words kept slipping through her mind. It felt as if her thoughts were slicked with grease; she couldn't seem to focus on anything. The voice. She had to know what it was saying. She didn't know _why_ she had to know, only that it seemed more important than anything else.

"…condition stable. Vital signs healthy, no major injuries. Minor concussion, but the helmet softened the blow enough so that it didn't kill her. Preliminary scans suggest above-average physical condition and evidence of dedicated training comparable to Fire Warrior standards."

A doctor. The voice had to be a doctor. She felt strangely pleased with herself at the deduction. Straining, she managed to open her eyes slightly, seeing the room she found herself in through a blurred slit. A sea of white assailed her; white walls, white ceiling, white floor. A white coat on the doctor pacing around the room, and a long braid of white hair draped over his shoulder.

A hiss echoed, and someone entered from the left. There was a door there, then. Whatever they had shot into her to make her mind like this – _sedatives_, said a voice in the back of her head – was wearing off.

The new arrival crossed to the foot of her bed – _bed? _– and looked her over. "How is she?" he said. His voice seemed… she couldn't say what. It was gone again.

"She's fine, Shas'vre," the doctor said. He looked at something she couldn't see. "Your man hit her hard enough to give her a concussion. If it wasn't for her helmet, she'd be in emergency care right now."

"Ui'Or'es will be reprimanded for excessive force. How did the Treatment go? She responded well?"

The doctor paused. "She didn't need it."

"Didn't need it?"

"There was nothing there to remove. It's like she just never had them."

_Them_? She could feel the lethargy draining away from her muscles, slowly.

"So she _is_ the one," the Shas'vre breathed.

_The one_? She didn't know what they were talking about; what they thought she was, or wasn't. All she cared about now was that she was unrestrained, and they were unprepared and unarmed.

"So it would seem," the doctor said. "I only wish the _Ky'ralas_ had more extensive medical facilities."

"We're just running up to jump eight. Six more, and we'll be at the Enclaves. Once we're there, you'll be able to run all the tests you want."

The doctor nodded slowly, and walked around to the side of her bed. He reached down to brush a strand of hair away from her face. "By the end of the kai'rotaa, we'll be that much closer to-"

_Now!_ Her hand shot up and her fingers clenched around his wrist. She used him to drag herself up from the bed, rolling off the side and coming up behind him. She twisted his arm behind his back, ignoring his yelp of surprise and pain, and locked her free arm around his neck.

"Back off," she told the Shas'vre. Slowly, he straightened from his tense crouch, letting his hand drop from his waist. She would bet her life had had a pistol concealed there.

"Shas'la Fi'rios," he began.

"Where am I?" she demanded, cutting him off.

He raised one hand in a pacifying gesture. "You're aboard the _Ky'ralas_, a Kel'shan class Il'fannor."

"That doesn't explain anything," she snapped. "Where are you taking me? Why did you…" she trailed off. "You saved me…"

The Shas'vre gave a soothing smile. "Yes, we saved you. It was unfortunately necessary that we had to subdue you, and Ui'Or'es will be reprimanded for his… heavy handed… methods."

"Why?" she asked. None of this made any sense. The Ethereals ordered her capture or death, and now she had been saved by these, when everyone else in the Empire would kill her on sight? "Who are you?"

"Why?" he said. "Because we believe that inside you lies the key to saving the Empire."

"Saving the Empire," she repeated, sceptical. She was almost used to hearing claims like that from the Gue'la she had fought on Kar'elis before any of this started, but to hear the same from a Tau was absurd. The Greater Good had no room for the individual, she knew. It was why the Ethereals wanted her dead.

_Kar'elis…_ The world stuck in her thoughts, though she couldn't say why. There was something about it, something to do with it, or with that time…

"I know," shrugged the Shas'vre, and the gesture sent a jolt through her. "It sounds ridiculous, but believe me, I am deadly serious. We _need_ you."

"And who is 'we'?" she asked, distracted. There was something about him… _Kar'elis… and him…_

"You would know us as rebels," he said simply. "We hail from the Farsight Enclaves."

_Farsight!_ She had thought the renegade Commander dead by now, like everyone else. The schism he had caused was over, stamped out with Commander Shadowsun's rise to supremacy within the Fire Caste. The Enclaves had passed from the Empire's attentions.

"And you?" she asked.

He gave a sad smile. "Do you not remember?"

And she did. Crashing back to her came the realisation of his identity. The ice-canyons of Kar'elis; the Gue'la and their smoke-belching vehicles that melted the floor beneath them, the lines of Fire Warriors enveloping them, firing and firing and firing until there was nothing left to fire at, and right there next to her, that same sad smile turned on the Gue'la as he killed them-

"M'yen," she breathed. Her arms dropped limp, and the doctor scrambled away from her.

"Yes," he said. "I thought you were dead, Vash'ya."

"Vash'ya?"

He gave a low laugh. "Yes. It's the name you've been awarded."

"Between Spheres? Fitting, I suppose." A name. Months – years, now – on the run from the Empire, and now she was awarded a new name by a face she hadn't thought to see ever again. If it wasn't happening, it would have seemed absurd.

"I thought so." His expression became suddenly serious, that melancholy smile briefly touching his lips. "Three years ago…" he began.

"Three years ago, I died," she said. "Or at least, that's what everyone thought, and the Aun seem to want to keep it that way."

"I didn't know you were-"

"Nobody did. You aren't to fault here, M'yen. If anyone is, it's me."

"No," he said, his voice firm. "Not you. The Ethereals."

"How do you speak abut them like that? Surely the Greater Good-"

"The Greater Good," he said dryly. "It is nothing but what the Ethereals want. They have enslaved our race, Vash'ya. Enslaved. O'Shovah saw, on Arthas Moloch, all those years ago. He saw, and it has been his mission since that day to free the Tau from the Ethereal's shackles."

"Then the rebellion, the rumours…"

"All true," he said, then corrected himself. "Nearly all true. We had hoped that more would come, from the Fire Caste at least."

"But the ones that did go – they were malcontents, undesirables. You wanted to build a future on that base?"

"No. They might have been that way when they came, but we-"

A keening siren cut him off. Green lights flared on the walls.

"Jump," he said. "No time to talk more. We've got to get to safety shells. Follow me."

He led the way through the door, and she followed; the doctor trailing behind. At least the safety shells were still the same. Everything was changing all at once, and she clung to this one static element like a rock in rapids. It was ironic, it occurred to her – change and progression were the Tau Empire's ultimate ideals, and when they happened to her, it was overpowering.

M'yen took them down the long corridor outside the infirmary – she assumed it was the infirmary; her gaze was turned inwards, trying to make sense of the situation she had been thrust into. _Again_, she thought dryly. _First the Aun, now M'yen and the Farsight Enclaves. _She wondered if M'yen had ever thought if _she_ wanted to help them. It sounded like she was simply swapping one version of the Tau'va for another. The Greater Good of the Tau Empire, or the greater good of the Farsight Enclaves. There seemed no difference from her position.

Her thoughts were broken when she felt the doctor's hand on her arm. She turned, pulling free. "Don't touch me," she said, more sharply than she intended. After being on the run for almost three years, it was all she could do to keep from bolting for the nearest exit. Being touched and grabbed was too much.

The doctor seemed to understand. He removed his hand, nodding respectfully. "I apologise," he said, smiling. "I tried speaking, but you seemed lost in your thoughts."

It was her turn to smile ruefully. "Sorry," she said. "What is it?" _Too abrupt_, she realised, as soon as she had said it. She was going to have to get used to conversation again.

"Just my own curiosity," said the doctor. "What you did in the infirmary was… impressive. And yet you're still only a Shas'la?"

"I was a Fire Warrior for less than a year," she replied. "The first Trial by Fire is after four years."

"Then you've eluded capture for over three years?" he asked, his voice serious.

"Three years, two months, and seventeen days."

He paused, considering. "Were you ever told why the Ethereals were hunting you?"

"No." The doctor just looked at her, that faint smile back on his lips. Without knowing why, she found herself telling more. "All I know," she shrugged, "is that it's Empire-wide. One morning, I woke up and I was fair game to anyone who recognised me."

"Fair game?" he said, his azure eyes glancing into her own.

"Kill or capture."

He frowned. "I see. Well, at any rate, we should be able to enlighten you on that account."

She echoed his frown. "You mean you know why they want me dead?"

He nodded, and his silk-white braid shivered where it hung down over his shoulder. "It's the same reason that _we_ want you so badly. Within your body contains what we believe to be the key to making our utopia a reality across the Empire."

"Your utopia?" she asked, her voice dry. In this galaxy, even in just the small corner she had seen herself, a utopia was a false hope. Cynical, but true.

He gave a small shrug. "Optimistic, I know, but it _is_ better than what the Empire offers. Slavery with them, or freedom with us."

She just shook her head. Choices like that were never choices, no matter how altruistic their proponents. Freedom was never as free as it professed to be. The chains just became invisible.

"I know what a claim like that must seem like, after what you've been through," he pressed, "but believe me, we want the best for everyone."

"Find me an Aun that will say differently," she replied.

He smiled again. "I know. It's our word against theirs. Just wait until we arrive, and you'll be able to see for yourself."

M'yen turned. "We're here," he said, indicating a door to his left. "Ly'ran, get strapped in. I'll help Vash'ya."

She strode past him. _Help? _The simple fact that he assumed she would need it stung. Stung far more than it should have. "I may have been absent from your utopia, M'yen," she said over her shoulder, "but I remember my way around a starship."

"Vash'ya," he started, but she ignored him and strode into the Safety Shell chamber. Despite her words, it seemed the _Ky'ralas_ had facilities different to those that she remembered. Instead of the two neat rows of opaque Shells, nineteen pads were arrayed in a circle around the centre of the chamber, and dozens upon dozens of Shells nestled high up in their own alcoves.

M'yen caught up with her before she reached the centre of the chamber. "Vash'ya," he said again, his hand closing on her shoulder. "I didn't mean-"

She shook him off. "Don't _touch_ me," she said sharply. "I can look after myself, M'yen. I don't need you watching over me."

"I know," he said. "But there are things you don't know – things you _can't_ know. We do things differently in the Enclaves, and behaving like you would in the rest of the Empire can cause problems."

"Just show me how to work the damn Shells." It seemed easy enough – the pads gave access to the Shells, and once you were safely inside, the Shell retracted back up into its alcove – but she was _not_ going to look like an idiot after what she had said. Even if it meant asking M'yen for help. Better to ask for help than to prove it was needed.

He stepped past her. "You stand at the back of the harness station – the pads on the floor. Tap the green key, hold out your arms, and let the Shells do the rest." To demonstrate, he took his own place in the closest station, reaching out to the controls mounted on his left and tapped at the green stud there. He gave her a nod, and held his arms out to his sides.

She started when the Shells swept down from above like one of the Gue'la drop pods. It landed in front of him, then split open down the middle and enfolded him. She saw vaguely-familiar clamps and braces moving into place around him, and then it was closed. It beeped twice, then slid smoothly back up into its alcove.

She glanced around, and was startled to see that the doctor – Ly'ran – still hadn't entered his own Shell. He gave her another smile. "Go on," he said. "It's your first time in the new style Safety Shells, so I'll wait until you're done."

"So if anything goes wrong, I won't just me stuck until the jump ends," she said dryly.

His smile deepened. "Exactly."

She turned away, walking to the station opposite to the doctor. His smiles were more than just a doctor's interest in the safety of his patient, and it made her uneasy. Not because she found him unattractive or distasteful – he was more than good looking, she thought, acutely aware of him behind her; with those icy eyes and smooth features, not to mention that braid of luxurious silver-white hair that hung to his waist – but because she still hadn't worked out how she felt about _herself_ yet.

And there was M'yen. They had been lovers, all those years ago, and she didn't know if he still felt the same way. She suppressed a snort. _I don't even know if _I_ still feel the same_. _He's… different. More driven. _But back in the infirmary, he had been the same M'yen she had known back on Kar'elis and before; if only for a moment.

She shook her head as she stepped into the station, turning her face back to the centre of the chamber. Now was not the time. Not with Ly'ran's eyes on her, and that smile staring at her. A breath escaped her lips as she depressed the green button to her left.

She started again as the Shell dropped down in front of her, and only just remembered to get her arms up before it snapped open and moved in on her. She saw Ly'ran shift his braid behind his shoulder, and then the two sides of the Shell closed together around her. Two cushioned clamps locked around her arms, and she felt the clamps pull them down to an almost forty-five degree angle from her. A breathing mask slipped over her face, and the padded interior of the Shell – designed to protect from any impacts or damages sustained by the ship while in the Warp, where most of the crew was largely superfluous and simply got in the way of the hardier drones – pressed around her.

She had a vague sensation of movement, before the fast-acting cryogen chemicals shot through her bloodstream from the clamps around her wrists. Whiteness enveloped her.


End file.
